Top 10 Clever Jokes And Observations (That Everybody Makes)

Original, interesting comedy is great, but crafting it is so damn HARD. Luckily, imitation and unoriginality are just as popular, if not more lucrative. Dane Cook, Jay Leno, Carlos Mencia, Denis Leary, and millions upon millions of Internet commenters can’t be wrong. Not to mention the guy in the grocery store checkout line who thinks he’s the next Twain because of his groundbreaking revelation that, yes, Twlight is a very silly book.

That’s just one of many jokes and observations that, at one time, were mind-blowingly original. And then, eight seconds later, everybody else made the exact same jokes at the exact same time. And they’re STILL MAKING THEM. So, in the style of Jerry Seinfeld’s I’m Telling You For The Last Time album, let’s just get a bunch of this material out the way, chuckle over it one last time, and then move on to something fresh. Like farting. That never gets old.

10. “Ironic” Isn’t An Ironic Song

So in 1994, Alanis Morrisette wrote a song called Ironic, featuring a whole bunch of scenarios that were more unfortunate twists of fate than they were truly ironic. Now, many people have no clue what actual irony is, but they sure know what it isn’t. And so, for damn near 20 years, people have been poking fun at this song, “expertly” pointing out that nothing she sings about is ironic, and then cleverly butchering “it’s like ray-yi-yaiiiiiiiiiiin,” to drive home their expert point.

It’s high time to give it a rest. We get it; it’s not an ironic song. People figured this out within two minutes of hearing the song for the first time. We’re begging you; no more rain-on-your-wedding-day gags. Even if it does rain on your wedding day. It’s your own fault anyhow; should’ve rented a tent.

There are even those out those who claim Alanis did this on purpose; she wrote a song called Ironic, and included no irony whatsoever. This would indeed be actual irony but, to be fair, she could’ve done that with any of her songs. It’s not ironic to bug someone during dinner or go down on them in a theater, after all. Also, it’s pretty generous to credit such clever wordplay to the woman who wrote, “Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know that it alone does not equate to wisdom,” and decided it would work in a song.

9. MTV Doesn’t Play Music

You probably wouldn’t have gotten the chance to hear Ironic if not for MTV. That stands for “Music Television,” in case you haven’t heard that little factoid the first 830358238204 times it was spewed out. People LOVE to point out that Music TV has no music, hoping some lowly MTV intern is sitting two tables away, hears them, and realizes the error of his ways. Then he will march down to MTV Studios, let his bosses know what the street think, and they will burrow their heads in their hands, scream WHAT HELL HATH WE WROUGHT at the Heavens, and immediately cancel all their reality shows marathons in favor of videos that most people will just watch on YouTube anyway.

What, that doesn’t happen? It hasn’t happened in the 20+ years that people have been commenting on this phenomenon? It’s not going to happen ever?

Yup, sounds about right. Now how about you go fire up YouTube, enjoy yourself, and never speak of this again. And if you need more convincing than even we can offer, then maybe this guy can further bore it into your skull. And if you STILL don’t get it after that, then you’re exactly who MTV caters to anyway. Enjoy your 16 And Pregnant marathon.

8. Pro Wrestling’s Fake

It’s one thing to make the same tired jokes for 20+ years. It’s quite another to make them for close to 75 years. And, if you’re a hater of pro wrestling who loves to point out that it isn’t real, then you fall squarely into that category, and need to let a wrestler punch you in the throat over and over again until you can no longer talk. What do you have to worry about? They won’t hurt you; their punches are fake. You’ll be fine.

Pro wrestling isn’t for everyone; we get that. It’s monumentally stupid 95% of the same; we definitely get that. Mocking the asinine crap that wrestling so often passes off as product is a completely acceptable use of your time, fan or no. But, for all that is holy, enough with the IT’S FAKE stuff. We know. We’ve always known. It isn’t hard to figure out. We could easily do a list of Reasons Even A Baby Could Tell Pro Wrestling’s Made Up, but the boss won’t let us write a Top 5,000,000 article. Something about bandwidth issues, the miser.

YouTube is the worst place for this lately. Any video with wrestling in it, or even just a wrestler doing other things, is all-but-guaranteed to feature commenters who think they’re opening up eyes with the Great Reveal. Laughing at people because you think that they think wrestling is real does nothing but paint you as an unoriginal hack. At least let one of us come to your house and laugh at you for thinking your girlfriend’s orgasm is real. Fair’s fair.

7. The Star Wars Prequels Were Just So, So Bad

Compared to some of the other things we’re discussing, jokes about the Star wars prequels are quite new: Phantom Menace is 13 years old, and Revenge of the Sith is only seven. But the endless mockery, and “expert” analysis of why these movies sucked, has aged this trilogy so fast that they could very well have cast Charlie Chaplin as Jar Jar Binks.

It’s not that we’re defending the movies: they are, by and large, pretty damn stupid. It’s just that, after a gazillion parodies of Jar Jar’s voice, and a bajillion comments on how Anakin’s hatred of sand is the worst pick-up line of all time, and an infinity-trillion-plus-one observations that Jake Lloyd was annoying, the pithiness gets a wee bit old. Amazingly, you’re not the first person to point out how “I am your father” is ruined thanks to the prequels. Homer Simpson ruined it LONG before Lucas ever did, anyway.

Oh, and don’t think it’s just the prequels that have been bludgeoned to death by hack humor. The whole Disney thing? Jokes about that, such as Darth Mickey, G ratings, Leia as a Disney Princess, and the return of Jar Jar, were overdone and spoiled within ONE DAY. That’s amazing, even for 2012 standards. Now let’s all agree to hush until the Episode 7 trailers, alright? Alright.

6. Gas Prices Are Ca-raaaaaazy

And joking about it is bo-riiiiiiiiiiing. There is literally nothing to say about it anymore. Gas goes up all the time. It happens. Once upon a time, gas was ten cents a gallon. People would comment (and complain) when it hit a quarter. Then 50 cents. Then a dollar. And so on and so forth. Each time, it’s the same thing; your observation that it costs more to drive a car nowadays than to buy a car has been done before, time and again. So has pointing out that it would make more sense to just bike or walk everywhere, which is made worse since you probably aren’t doing that.

And everybody who feels the need to ask, “where are all the solar cars?!” should just walk (not drive) to the nearest hospital and have their vocal cords removed. Guess what? The technology’s out there, and have been so for years. Why aren’t they mass-market? Not enough interest. There’s certainly interest in talking about them though, ad nauseum. While filling up with old-fashioned $4-a-gallon gasoline, and chattering about how out-of-control these prices have gotten these days.

5. The Rolling Stones Are Old As Balls

When just uttering a name is good enough for a punchline, it’s officially a dead punchline. Case in point: the Rolling Stones. Anytime the conversation shifts to “old people”, all you need to do is namedrop Mick or Keith, and your giggle quota is all set for the evening. And if you go the extra mile, and infer that their first concert was performed in front of Adam and Eve or the dinosaurs? There won’t be a dry pair of pants at the party!

This has been the case for far too long. The Stones have been a band for 50 years. For the last 30 of them, people have been joking about how damn old and washed-up they are. 30 years from now, people will be doing the same thing, ignoring that a bunch of centenarians still pounding on guitars and drums would probably be medicine’s greatest accomplishment ever. It’s almost as if the Stones give less than zero craps if you rib them for being older than your grandfather. And by this point, no one else should give a crap either.

4. Man, X Current Pop-Culture Phenomenon Sure Does Suck

As of this writing, fluff such as Twilight, Justin Bieber, and 50 Shades Of Grey are the main subjects of ridicule, but that could change at anytime, as new pieces of fluff grab our attention. Isn’t that right, boy bands/Transformers movies/Rebecca Black/Octomom/Survivor? Don’t feel too lonely; 50 Shades and Nicole Westbrook will be keeping you company very soon.

Like with the Star Wars prequels, it isn’t that the objects of mockery are actually good; they’re not. But when you’re the 500th person in an hour to rant about Bella Swan being a bad role model for little girls, or that 50 Shades is the most poorly-written tripe this side of a seven-year-old’s Twitter account, all you’re doing is making the world a little more redundant and a little less interesting. Also, you’re killing angels. Do you want that on your conscience? No? Then find a new angle, dammit.

If these objects of your scorn are truly as bad as you deem them to be (and they probably are), then you should have no problem coming up with a couple new jokes every now and then. Barring that, you can always send any of us money to do it for you. We like money.

3. It Feels Like Christmas Comes Earlier Every Year!

This one. Everybody says it, and nobody sounds intelligent when they do. Thinking it over for more than a quarter of a second will make you realize senseless it is. How long have people been bringing this up? Your whole life? Your parents would probably give the same answer.

Bottom line, this little observation has been made for a long freakin’ time. Ergo, if it were true, then your local Wal-Mart would be rolling out Christmas stuff in early March by this point. Perhaps earlier, even. December 25th could come and go, and new decorations would be out by mid-afternoon December 26th. Aside from the occasional loony tunes next-door neighbor who leaves their wreath up forever and ever, nobody actually does this Christmas stuff year round.

And don’t you dare defend yourself by insisting it’s just hyperbole, a satirical statement on how Christmas stuff arrives much too early for your liking. It’s been this way for a good long time. Maybe a long time ago you didn’t see Christmas stuff until December, but it’s been invading Thanksgiving and Halloween for decades by now. It’s a law of nature by this point. Hyperbolic satire or not, joking about this as effective as ranting about all that damned oxygen that’s suddenly hanging around.

2. Fun-Size Candy Bars Are Too Small To Be Fun

This one’s incredibly obvious, so you’re forgiven if you utter it without thinking too much. After all, what’s fun about a piece of candy the size of your thumb? Nothing, unless you eat about 12 of them at once. And we all know this instinctually.

So this observation is excusable–ONCE. You only get to be clever about tiny chunks of chocolate one time. Any time after that is automatically old hat, and you’re doing nothing but nudging the shoulder of the guy next to you and going “eh? eh? Clever, no? eh? Yeah, it was clever,” until they either agree just to shut you up, or they punch you in the teeth. That is, if your teeth haven’t already rotted from all that fun-size candy you chow down on.

In short, it’s almost an anti-joke now, like asking what the deal is with the peanuts they serve on the airplane. And, amazingly enough, the deal with the peanuts is the same deal as fun-size candy: it’s food. Eat it. Then eat more if you’re still hungry. If the airline won’t give you more peanuts, wait until the guy next to you passes out from too much bourbon, and then swipe his. If he wakes up and wonders where his peanuts went, blame the guy next to HIM. And then sit back and watch the fun.

1. Oh, My Poor Childhood!

It’s an understandable lament at first; as we age, the responsibilities and disappointments of adult life weigh down heavily upon us. Naturally, we gravitate toward thoughts of our youth, with greater and greater affection for the simple things we grew up on. So, when somebody comes along and changes what we loved, or we stumble upon an unpleasant truth about it, we don’t often react well.

Meaning, we spew tired lines about how our “childhood is being raped,” because Michael Bay wants to turn the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into aliens. Or, upon learning that Stephanie from Full House became a drug addict, it’s a punch “right in the childhood.” And so on and so forth, until the listener begins to actively hate both childhood and children.

It’s become a total cliché to lament about something butchering your childhood, as though nothing had ever tampered with your memories before this ever. And it’s lazy too; these childhood-busting events have tons of humorous potential. Yet, instead of taking time to study the comedic worth of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Aliens, or attempting to find something darkly comic about celebrity burnout and addiction, you just crack upon a line about how your poor, poor childhood is being stomped upon, and hope everybody leaves it at that.

Sadly, lots of people probably will. And that hurts our adulthood. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the adults?

Jason Iannone is a humorist and editor for hire. He can currently be found and contacted at all the usual social media thises and thats.

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12 Comments

I agree with most of them except for the Star Wars Prequels one. They weren’t that bad. Just couldn’t match the amazing quality of the Original Trilogy. So I guess not everyone make thats observation. I don’t.

This is actually the first time I’ve heard my sentiments about Bella Swan being an awful role model being echoed. I guess this means I truly am surrounded by idiots all day long.
Great list BTW, I’ve sent the link to all the smart ass, know-it-alls who never shut up in my contact list.

I agree with most of this list except for a things. There is a huge market for alternative energy if the price were comparable to what is out there now. People always say that christmas is “too comerical” (not that I agree with that).

About the Christmas one, my brother who works at Walmart says, every year, unless they put up christmas decorations right after Halloween, people start complaining. So, that’s not really the major companies’ fault, it’s more the consumers’ fault.

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